


starlight reborn

by starlightwalking



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cuiviénen, Gen, Post-Battle of Five Armies, The Avari, Tolkien Gen Week 2018, five senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 03:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13402599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/pseuds/starlightwalking
Summary: Tauriel visits the birthplace of her ancestors, to see again the stars.





	starlight reborn

**Author's Note:**

> I read that the Avari preferred the starlight of Cuiviénen to the Light of the Trees, and well - so would Tauriel. She wouldn't sail to Valinor, she would stay in Middle-earth, and her returning to that place of holy starlight is something I can see her doing.  
> Tolkien Gateway says that Cuiviénen was destroyed in the War of Wrath, and that might be true, but I can't find any other sources on that, and I can do what I want in my own fics anyway. Also I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be saltwater, and not a lake, but I prefer this more poetic version. This is not your Silm purist fic. (I mean, it's about Tauriel, so you should have guessed by now.)  
> For Tolkien Gen Week Day 4: Solo.

Waves lap at her feet, slow and calm and silver. She closes her eyes, letting the soft wind caress her face and tangle her hair. The rhythm of the waves steadies the beating of her fractured heart, its music trickling through the cracks.

This place hides in the hollow of a valley so deep the moon cannot reach over the height of the mountains. In the day, shadows are long and mingled, creating an illusion of perpetual twilight.

No candles or campfires are lit here. On these shores, only the light of the stars is visible, glowing softly in the midnight sky.

Tauriel does not look at the stars. They are holy, the guides to her first ancestors, those who woke by the waters of Cuiviénen. She dares not behold their glory.

The water kisses her feet over and over in its gentle tide, and she remembers.

✰✰✰

She is young and curious, running from her guardians—away, away, and up into the night. She climbs the highest tree, reaching up to touch the stars.

They are light and fire and feel hot in her child's grasp. She gasps in wonder, holding them close to her heart. They wriggle and squirm, trying to escape.

_The stars are alive!_  She'd known it to be true, but here was the proof in her very hands.

Laughing, she throws them back up into the air, and they explode back into the night, wings flapping and chirping.

✰✰✰

Childhood was a precious time, when she could believe that fireflies were really the stars and that she could hold light in the palm of her hand.

The cold silver at her feet is a contrast to the memory of the fireflies burning in her grasp. These hands have touched a hundred arrows, these feet walked a thousand steps, but that moment and this are more meaningful than any numbered accomplishment.

Tauriel kneels in the white sand. She opens her eyes and cups her hands, dipping them into the waters before her. She drinks, shivering as the water's chill runs through her body. It is cool, and—fresh.

She had heard of these shores since childhood, the place where her people began, but she had assumed Cuiviénen to be a mighty sea, not this tranquil lake in a hidden valley.

The Avari had brought her here. She had lived with them for a century, learning their language and customs and returning to the earth as it had been before any mortals walked its hills.

This place was locked in time, endless, untouched by the destructions at the turn of every age. Its waters were fresh and new as the day of the world's birth.

✰✰✰

She had tasted starlight, once. She had walked far from the borders of her forest, her family gone and her bonds to it cut. She would return, but not yet.

She wanders alone, searching for meaning in the skies. She finds it in a mountain spring, high in the sky where the air is thin and her head spins with bright stars and cool winds.

She runs her fingers through the icy stream of water. It sparkles and glimmers and reflects the starlight into her soul.

She takes a long drink from the spring, and her body catches fire. She whoops in joy as energy floods through her then races down the mountain and back toward home. Never has she felt more free; never has she felt more wild.

✰✰✰

This water tastes the same, but if  _feels_  different. Tauriel is calmed; she is pensive and reflective. What had changed her so from that wild girl she once had been?

Her knees are wet. She stands and brushes sand off her palms. The smell of growing trees and endless air drifts through her nose. She sniffs, drinking it in: never has there been such a clean smell in all the world.

There are few places left untouched by mortal hands. The world has changed; whether for better or for worse is not for her to say.

She is one of the last elves still in Middle-earth, but despite everything, she will not sail. Her soul is tied here, to all that is green and good in the world and can still be protected.

✰✰✰

The first time she left the wilds for what they called "civilization", she had been overwhelmed. Never had she imagined so many people or things in all the world, let alone in one place!

She stays in the city for two days before she cannot bear it any longer. The place  _stinks_ , and she cannot bear it.

The return to the forest is a relief she cannot overstate. Her companions tease her, but she brushes their mockery aside.

She knows where she belongs: where she can  _breath_ e in open air.

✰✰✰

Nothing compares to the holy air of Cuiviénen. Tauriel's home is long gone, taken bit by bit and turned into cities for man. She is sorrowed for its loss, but there is nothing to be done.

The Avari, ever unwilling to be controlled, hide themselves away. They block all paths to what remains of the wild, leaving it as untouched as they can. There are few of them remaining, and they barely speak, only in whispers. Most of their communication is through signing.

It has been years since Tauriel has heard the sound of another voice. She had traveled the world alone, and now she listens only to the creaking of the trees, the rush of the wind, the chirping of the birds.

Her voice is hoarse and broken, but she longs to hear it. Countless languages of elves and dwarves and men have fallen uselessly into her head, but now she needs to speak in her native tongue.

Softly, her voice cracking, she murmurs a prayer to the wind: "Alag annui, erio thûl lín i faer hen!"

✰✰✰

She used to speak every day, ceaselessly. Her tongue was quick and fiery, but waxed poetic at times.

She laughs, speaking to an enchanting stranger in a prison cell. His words are a delight to her ears, despite their unfamiliar nonsense.

There is a feast tonight, and voices echo down through the caves. He comments on them; she replies. Their banter is light, quick—until he makes a passing remark about the stars.

"All light is sacred to the Eldar," she admonishes, "but the wood-elves love best the light of the stars."

✰✰✰

She spoke, then. Now she listens to the echo of her voice on the wind, carried far away to places and people she will never behold.

The night grows old. Soon the sun will rise and drown out the stars. Tauriel still feels as empty as she had upon her arrival to Cuiviénen.

At last, she looks up.

✰✰✰

Beyond the forest—far beyond—there is nothing but light. The world falls away, the white light of forever fills the air, and it fills her.

She becomes one with the light, letting it fill her, letting it lift her spirit. She is a being of starlight and fire, a daughter of the forest and a sister of the skies.

It glows, it glows, it lights her world, and her eyes are filled with the beauty of Elbereth's creations.

✰✰✰

Tears come to her eyes. This was the first sight her ancestors beheld as they woke, young and bright. She saw it then, she sees it now, she has always seen it: it is starlight eternal, the birthright of her people.

There are lights in the Trees, and then in the Silmarils; lights the Avari refused to follow. Tauriel's Silvan people heeded the call for only so long before the forest won their hearts, and their eyes turned again skyward.

There are lights that are beacons in the sky, the sun and moon. They change the world from night to day, but in the beginning, all was twilight.

There are lights made by man, fire and oil and electricity. They are creations of marvelous power, but Tauriel weeps to see Elbereth's handspun stars.

Her heart had long been broken, but Tauriel feels it heal again. She understands now. She sees the starlight, and it is forever and everywhere.

All is as it was and will be, and Tauriel is reborn upon the starlit waters.

**Author's Note:**

> Tauriel's prayer is translated as “Rushing winds, may your breath lift this spirit!” and was cobbled together using [Tara’s Sindarin Phrasebook](http://tara.istad.org/sind-phrases.htm/) and [this Sindarin dictionary](http://www.ambar-eldaron.com/english/downloads/sindarin-english.pdf). It's my personal headcanon that she probably spoke a highly colloquial Silvan dialect of Sindarin as her first language, or maybe even a totally Silvan language with few Sindarin influences, but alas - for fanfiction, we make do with what we have, which in this case was just plain Sindarin.  
> Thanks for reading and commenting!


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